Q&A: I Did Not Fully Understand the Rabbi’s View
I Did Not Fully Understand the Rabbi’s View
Question
Rabbi, you often cite the Talmud in Eruvin 13b as proof that there is no absolute truth in Jewish law, and that determining Jewish law has to come from the understanding of the learner (provided he is qualified, of course), even if he knows that before Heaven it is known that he is not correct. And especially here, where the majority and the sages disagree with him.
But today, in the Daf Yomi, I reached that passage and was astonished to see that the plain meaning of the Talmud is as far from the explanation the Rabbi attached to it as east is from west, and in fact the exact opposite is what emerges from this passage. I will quote the language of the Talmud in its plain sense.
Rabbi Aha bar Hanina said: It was revealed and known before the One Who spoke and the world came into being that there was no one in Rabbi Meir’s generation equal to him. So why was Jewish law not established in accordance with his view? Because his colleagues could not get to the depth of his thinking, for he would declare the impure pure and show a rationale for it, and declare the pure impure and show a rationale for it.
Rashi writes: They could not understand which of his statements were correct and which were not, for he would present a settled and convincing argument even for positions that were not in accordance with the law.
That is, the explanation of the Talmud’s words is that Rabbi Meir would give proper and acceptable reasons for his views both when he said that the impure was impure and when he said that the pure was pure, and also when he said the opposite—that the impure was pure and the pure was impure. (The Ben Yehoyada explains that he wanted to sharpen the students.) And therefore his colleagues could not get to the depth of his thinking—that is, when his words were correct for practical Jewish law and when they were not. And that is the reason Jewish law is not ruled in accordance with him. Meaning, had we indeed known when he meant his words as practical Jewish law, then the law really would have been ruled in accordance with him because of his greatness.
Incidentally, the Talmud here on 13b explains that this was also the case with Rabbi Meir himself when he came to study under Rabbi Akiva: at first he could not get to the depth of his thinking and know when he intended his words as practical Jewish law and when not.
Answer
You wrote that this is the plain meaning of the Talmud, and then you brought Rashi’s interpretation. But I suggested a different interpretation of the Talmud. According to Rashi, it is not clear why they did not simply ask him what the Jewish law is, and that would be that.
Discussion on Answer
Tom, when Rabbi Meir’s view is brought in the Mishnah, is that not his final position? We do not raise contradictions in Rabbi Meir from one statement of his to another on the grounds that maybe he said it only to sharpen the students. Why then is Jewish law not always in accordance with him even in those cases?
Also, Rashi’s explanation does not imply your interpretation either (were it not for the Ben Yehoyada, whose words here are puzzling). How did the sages know that his words were incorrect if he gave a settled and convincing reason? After all, if there is an explicit law, then no convincing reason can go against it—meaning, any convincing reason must first fit all the agreed-upon halakhic data. Rather, his conclusion did not seem correct to them, despite the fact that he gave apparently persuasive arguments. It is something like a paradox. And from here it indeed follows that a sage has autonomy—and even more so, that if a certain conclusion seems right to a sage, then even if he cannot put his finger on the flaw in the great scholar’s reasoning, he may rely on his own halakhic intuition, something like a suspicious judgment.
T, I recommend going through the whole page; that is the topic there. They also brought the example of the 150 reasons to declare a creeping thing pure—would you say that on that basis it would also actually be ruled pure? From the plain meaning of the Talmud, even without Rashi as I already noted, it appears that even Rabbi Meir himself, when he studied under Rabbi Akiva, did not succeed—he, who was the greatest of the generation, could not get to the depth of his thinking, and therefore went to study under Rabbi Ishmael for a period. This has nothing at all to do with the Ben Yehoyada’s added explanation of why Rabbi Meir acted that way.
The creeping thing is exactly what illustrates it. We are talking about someone who gives a convincing rationale for declaring a creeping thing pure in some way that I do not know what it is, but a proper, coherent rationale—not nonsense or empty hairsplitting. Meaning, somehow he has a magical answer to the enormous difficulty, since the Torah explicitly says that a creeping thing is impure. Maybe he makes a contextual interpretation of the verse that actually works, maybe he is speaking about a particular mode of impurity, or whatever it may be (see there in the Tosefta commentary), but he manages to get out from under the pressure of the difficulties and fit everything with all the hard data. So what remains against such a genius? Only the sage’s strong contrary intuition. Otherwise, obviously his words are worthless.
And again, Rabbi Meir himself surely thought that the Jewish law followed his own view as it is brought in the Mishnah, and I did not understand what you are answering to that. Rabbi Meir thought his own pilpul was correct and true, and there was none in his generation equal to him, and even so the law is not ruled in accordance with him. How do you explain that? I did not understand. I would be glad if you could address that point again, directly.
By the way, I personally have analyzed (or maybe am still hostile in the present tense, I need to think about it) the exalted value of autonomy. I was childish in an old thread there where my name was Shu’a [Spun and Woven], and I dealt with a shaatnez of different leniencies that do not contradict one another, and maybe perhaps you might also be interested in reading there.
https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%93%D7%A8%D7%9B%D7%99-%D7%94%D7%9B%D7%A8%D7%A2%D7%94-%D7%91%D7%94%D7%9C%D7%9B%D7%94
He does not have to be a practical halakhic decisor. You can ask him at the end of the lecture what the Jewish law is. That’s all.
So why didn’t he just ask Rabbi Akiva at the end of the lecture what the law is? He simply left him for a period and went to study under Rabbi Ishmael. Apparently they had an interest specifically in not stating the law, as the Ben Yehoyada claims.
T, regarding Rabbi Meir himself, I do not know whether he knew that he really was the greatest of his generation. By the way, the wording of the Talmud is that it was revealed and known before the One Who spoke and the world came into being, so it is not at all certain that the other sages knew that he was in fact the greatest sage. So the Rabbi’s thesis again requires examination.
And the Talmud explicitly says, “for he would declare the impure pure and show a rationale for it, and declare the pure impure and show a rationale for it”—that is, he himself intentionally presented contradictory rulings, both of which sat well on the heart, in the sense of “these and those are the words of the living God.”
The Talmud does not say that he said about the same thing that it was both impure and pure. Rather, about one thing that *appeared impure to the sages* he said pure, and they could not put their finger on the flaw in the argument; and about something else that *appeared pure to the sages* he said impure, and they could not, etc. You did not address the fact that Rabbi Meir’s final position is known, and we today know that there was no one in his generation equal to him, and even so we do not rule in accordance with him.
I did not argue about the actual form of halakhic ruling; for that there is already the continuation of the Talmud with “these and those,” and the law follows Beit Hillel.
I only claimed that from the specific story of Rabbi Meir it really sounds like Rashi’s explanation, and not like the Rabbi’s forced reading. So what we know today about Rabbi Meir’s position is not relevant, just as the Oven of Akhnai is not relevant.
If you meant to answer me, then I did not understand. If the sages had known the truth, that there was no one in Rabbi Meir’s generation equal to him, then in your view would they have retracted and ruled in accordance with him—and even so, today we do not rule in accordance with him because the majority in his time decided otherwise due to not knowing that there was no one equal to him? [I think, as I wrote above, that even according to Rashi’s interpretation it comes out that a sage’s autonomy overrides the assumption that the divine truth is probably with the brilliant dialectician.]
They would have ruled in accordance with him because they would have regarded him as the decisor—just as a lesser scholar would ask Rabbi Elyashiv or Rabbi Ben Zion Abba Shaul and the like, and even if his own analysis led elsewhere in practice he would rely on their ruling.
As for halakhic ruling, what was ruled is what was established, not what is known before Heaven, as is proven from the Oven of Akhnai.
Therefore, nowadays, after what was ruled was ruled, it is not relevant what Rabbi Meir’s opinion was regarding how to act in practice.
What does the Oven of Akhnai have to do with this? We are not talking about knowledge from Heaven, but human knowledge: according to the interpretation under discussion, the sages simply did not manage to fully understand Rabbi Meir’s words—that is, they were not convinced by him even though he had reached a final ruling. The Mishnah is before us, as stated. Rabbi Meir’s words are there—what he said in his own generation. His opinion is completely clear and he himself stands behind it.
So let me understand what you are claiming: if autonomy has value, then even though there was no one in Rabbi Meir’s generation equal to him, the sages are still entitled to rule (and do rule) according to what seems correct to them personally. But in your view there is no value to autonomy, and if only the sages had known the true extent of Rabbi Meir’s wisdom, they all really would have retracted and ruled in accordance with him, and the whole Mishnah would have been according to his view; and we today continue with the sages’ rulings only because they did not know what Rabbi Aha bar Hanina knew. Did I summarize your position correctly?
T, so like this: the Oven of Akhnai expresses the absolute truth of Jewish law. The heavenly voice did not come in order to deceive us. And nevertheless, in a dispute between disputants of equal standing, they are not obligated to accept the conclusion of the other, even if it is backed by a heavenly voice. And the reason is that the Torah was given to human beings, and they must derive halakhic conclusions from it subject to the toolbox at their disposal, such as logic, interpretive principles, and so on.
A heavenly voice is not part of the toolbox available to the learner. However, when there was doubt about how to decide—for example, in the disputes of Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel, where both are in fact correct because both reached their conclusions after using the toolbox—a heavenly voice had to come and decide for us who sit in Zion how to act in practice: whether one adds and goes upward or the reverse. But the heavenly voice is not relevant for Beit Shammai themselves, who continued to act according to what emerged for them after analysis of the passage, because the rule of “it is not in Heaven” means that, from their perspective, what emerged for them is what obligates them.
Returning to Rabbi Meir: to say that the plain meaning of the Talmud is that they did not accept the law in accordance with him because of his greatness is a terrible distortion. It is like a child who does not know how to calculate some mathematical problem and argues with his teacher. If you are aware of your limitation, then you definitely need to rely on sages greater than you. Once the law has already been established, even if today you prove that its source was some limitation of the person grasping it, that is irrelevant, because what binds us is what was accepted, not the ultimate truth as known before Heaven.
Conclusion: if you are qualified and do not have some lesser limitation like those who lived in Rabbi Meir’s time, then you are bound by your own conclusion. If you are aware of your limitation, then you are bound by those greater than you. Shall we say that the Shulchan Arukh and the Mishnah Berurah were written only for ignoramuses?!
Bottom line: there is indeed a certain autonomy in Jewish law, but Rabbi Meir is not the proof of it; on the contrary, the opposite is true.
Just as he did not ask Rabbi Akiva at first when he studied with him—he was not a halakhic decisor answering practical questions, he was giving analytical lectures with pilpulim, each of which was persuasive enough. By the way, this is not specifically about Rashi; it is the plain meaning of the Talmud in the clearest possible way, plain as day. The continuation itself explains: “for he would declare the impure pure and show a rationale for it, and declare the pure impure and show a rationale for it.” And by the way, the whole continuation of the Talmud there follows this line, where they brought 150 reasons to declare a creeping thing pure.
Even if the Rabbi’s explanation can somehow be squeezed in, it would have been proper to note that this is not what the plain meaning of the Talmud suggests, and that the Rabbi saw fit to interpret it this way because that is his conception and approach to Jewish law.